Dave Albo – Attorney
Dave Albo – Attorney
Well … it depends. It all depends upon what experience your reckless driving lawyer in Fairfax, Virginia has, how much individual attention you want, and how complicated the case is.
Experience of your lawyer. When I was first out of law school, my fees were very low. That is because, without any experience, the only way I could compete for clients’ business was on price. If a potential client had a choice between a lawyer who had been practicing law for over 20 years and was a former prosecutor verses me, a guy recently out of law school who never prosecuted, the client was, of course, choosing the experienced lawyer. So the only way I got the client was to charge dramatically less money. Don’t get me wrong, I worked hard and did my best, but looking back at it there was a lot I did not know. For example, since I had not been in the Court for very long, I did not know which Judges were the hard ones and which were the lenient. I had no track record with the Prosecutors, so they did not trust me yet. I did not really know what a good plea deal was verses a bad deal. In summary, experience costs money. The more experience the more you will have to pay for a Reckless Driving lawyer Fairfax County.
Individual attention. When lawyer spends the morning in court defending a client on a Reckless Driving, he makes the fee he charges you. But what if a lawyer has two clients, or three, or four or ten? You can do the math: He makes 2x, 3x, 4x or 10 x the money! That is why you see a lot of lawyers with multiple Reckless Driving files under their arms in traffic court. This also allows them to charge lower fees. An attorney with one Reckless case charges, for example, $1,500, but a lawyer with three clients can make the same amount of money charging three people $500. We call the $500 lawyers “volume attorneys.” They make their money on volume. There is nothing wrong with this, and nothing unethical. However, I don’t do that. I remember when I was a Prosecutor and the volume lawyers would say, “Can you give all three of my clients a good deal…” I would respond, “No! This is not Wal Mart where there is a flash sale on Reckless!” I also knew that I could give that lawyer a crappy plea offer because he was going to take whatever I offered. He had to, because he had three other courtrooms to go to. He would never be able to go to trial. When I was a Prosecutor, I vowed I would never be a volume lawyer. I would only represent one person a day and give that client 100% of my time and attention.
Complexity of the case. A lawyer basically only has his time to sell. So, if a case is complicated and, therefore, requires more advance preparation, the fee is going to be higher. With Reckless Driving cases, there are a couple of things that can make a case more complicated. Accidents are more complicated because your lawyer will have to get the accident report, analyze possible defenses and interview witnesses. And, in Fairfax County, Reckless Driving accident cases are two days in court. The first day is when you plead not guilty and the second date is the trial date when the witnesses are summoned. Reckless Driving by Speed is usually not too complicated, but if the client was going 30+ over the limit, jail and license suspensions are common. Thus, the stakes are higher and more preparation prior to court to coordinate safe driving classes, DMV records, and speedometer calibrations are required.
With all this said, what does a Reckless Driving lawyer cost in Fairfax County Virginia? If you want an inexperience and/or high volume lawyer, then probably about $500. If you want an experienced lawyer who will do just your case, depending upon the complexity, $950 for the simplest case and $1,600 – $2,200 for complex cases or speeds greater than 100 mph. Contact the office of Dave Albo – Attorney for more information.
